In today’s cultural and political landscape, it’s clear that we need Superman and his values more than ever.
Superman is an icon around the world. Created in 1938, he is recognized as the first superhero and there is no doubt that he has left an indelible mark on human history. That being said, there are times when some say he has felt old-fashioned or irrelevant.
The creative minds at Warner Brothers and DC Comics could not disagree more. Many of them feel that Superman is more relevant than ever in our current cultural and political climate. With that in mind, the summer of 2025 has been dubbed the Summer of Superman. It is a chance to have some incredible stories in the comics coincide with the highly anticipated release of James Gunn’s Superman film that will bring the Man of Steel to the big screen for the first time, other than a brief cameo in Black Adam, since 2017.
Superman is a character we can all aspire to emulate more and the chance to bring the character to a new generation of moviegoers and kids who may not even have been born the last time he appeared in film is a tremendous opportunity. The same goes for comics, perhaps to an even greater degree.
It has been said that film is media for the masses, and it is relatively easy to go see a movie and become immersed in the world presented by the filmmakers and be inspired for the length of the film. In the case of really impactful films that inspiration may last even longer. However, there is a medium which can continue to inspire for longer than a film. It is a medium where the audience can connect in a greater, deeper, more meaningful way than with movies. That medium is comics, the first entertainment medium that Superman first appeared in. It’s a medium uniquely suited to explore the themes, ideas and character traits that make Superman who he is, while using the limitless imagination of artist and reader to elevate these stories to immortality.
These are fictional stories that will last as long as there are humans to read them. What’s more, it allows for that deeper connection in a few ways. First, it requires engagement by the audience to read them, to invest some of themselves into these stories. The second reason is borne out of that investment, because each reader is an individual, with his or her own life experiences, everyone will relate and react to a story in subtly unique ways. We will all be inspired if we are touched by a story in slightly different ways. That is the power of comics.
Just as the James Gunn film is an opportunity for Superman to reach new fans. The stories, titles and events DC Comics has planned for The Summer of Superman is a huge opportunity for any and all comic fans and fans of Superman in particular to reach out to potential new readers and guide them into the world of comics. Long-time comic book fans know that a healthy comic book industry is dependent on finding new readers to engage in their own ways with the books. DC Comics is giving readers all the tools they need to share the love of Superman with everyone, here’s hoping many take advantage of the opportunity.
Having spoken to the writers of the current and upcoming Superman titles, Mark Waid, Dan Slott and Joshua Williamson, many teases were revealed and it’s clear that the Last Son of Krypton has been and will continue to be in great hands. That’s not to say Superman won’t have his hands full very, very soon though. With a change in the status quo of Kryptonite, a look book at the hard lessons Superman learned as a boy while figure out how to be Superman and an evil version of the DC Comics fan-favorite team, the Legion of Superheroes having captured and tortured Booster Gold, it’s far to say the Summer of Superman may turn out to be the most challenging time for Metropolis’s favorite son.
The current era of DC Comics has been well-received by fans, both in the newly established Absolute Universe as well as in the mainstream universe with decades of continuity. Where these universes first collided was in last October’s DC All-In special. The Death of the biggest villain in the DCU, Darkseid, triggered the creation of the Absolute Universe and left a power vacuum behind in the main universe. We got a glimpse of an evil Legion of Superheroes when Booster Gold, who was uniquely able to cross into the Absolute Universe, went to this new universe to investigate Darkseid’s disappearance. We haven’t seen him since, but you will see him again very soon in the pages of the Summer of Superman Special.
What his reappearance means exactly, we don’t yet know, but it doesn’t appear to be looking good for this time-traveling hero. Bringing Booster back at this time feels like the perfect choice as he, perhaps as much if not more than other heroes of the DCU, looks up to Superman tremendously. Couple that with his time-traveling background and Superman’s long-standing connection to the future heroes of the Legion and you have a natural fit. It’s only a tease so far, but it bodes well for the development of this storyline that already feels very compelling.
The Summer of Superman kicks off April 16th with the release of the special, so let’s take a look at what Mark Waid, Dan Slott and Joshua Williamson had to say about the current and future of Superman heading into this very exciting time for the Man of Steel.
Joshua, it’s fair to say your Superman run has been a great balance of action and emotion with some great relationships being explored, from Jimmy Olsen and Siobahn Smith to Mercy and Lex. And of course, expanding on the Superman and Lois relationship with Lois gaining powers and relating to Superman in a way she never has before. Can you talk about the challenge of maintaining this balance?
Joshua Williamson: I mean, it’s always what Superman is about. The balance between Clark and Superman, right? So, for me, it’s always just sort of making sure I keep both those sides. I just try to keep those two things in check for me. I don’t always want to make it fall into like a math problem of … I have this many pages dedicated to Clark and this many pages dedicated Jimmy. I do kind of do that a little bit but I really just try to look at what the characters are doing and how they’re reacting to the story around them. And then yeah, I just keep both those sides in mind at all times. And it’s not just Superman running around saving people. It’s not just Suman lifting up a car. I keep an eye on. Clark, what’s going on with Clark and the people around him.
It’s been said that how well the Superman comics are dealing in terms of sales and creativity is a great barometer for DC overall. Do you believe there’s any truth to that? It seems that to be borne out right now with the Superman titles doing very well and DC looking as healthy as it has been in a long time.
Mark Waid: I would say there’s truth to that. I mean, he is our flagship character, no matter what that other guy in the Cape from Gotham thinks he is. So, you know, as goes Superman, so goes DC Comics, right?
JW: Yeah, yeah, I’m. I’m a big believer in that too. That when the Superman books are working, everything sort of … you can see that it’s working, Yeah, that that’s a big piece of it. I mean, I always think that DC’s never just one person, but it’s uh … Superman. So that’s a whole different math to it. So, yeah, I mean, you look at the time periods of when Superman was doing well and I think you look at the rest of the line, I think right now DC is very clearly firing on all cylinders. I’m really happy with the work DC is doing since the All In Special and the stuff that’s happening with the Absolute line.
You know, not to toot our own horn, but I feel like Mark and I were doing good Superman stories coming in and Dan coming in and doing an awesome unlimited book. So, I do feel like right now that is definitely true.
Will Lana and John’s marriage wedding have a lasting impact on any of the series?
JW: I’m going to be picking up that plot thread a little bit later. One of things with Superman is we’ve been really carrying forward a lot of the mysteries All In and from the All In Special, just like Mark does with Justice League, we are going to be picking up the Darkseid legion, the Omega Legion or the Dark Legion, whichever you want to call it, but Darkseid’s Legion, we’re gonna be picking up that plot pretty quickly here. We’ve been kind of teasing it in Superman, and that’s the Stinger. You know, that’s the little in the coda at the end of the Summer of a Superman Special is they’re there and they have Booster Gold. It’s going full into spoilers here. We’re gonna pick up that thread pretty quickly in Superman, I think we’re gonna be announcing that pretty soon, and because it’s gonna be tied to the big the big picture of All In for a little bit. So I will definitely be picking up some of the stuff with Lana and John, but I may not be doing it until probably 2027, that’s when I’ll be really picking up that that thread. But there’ll be isome stuff that will happen in between that might impact that story a little bit, so we’ll definitely get back to that. But for me, in my book, it’ll be a little bit of time before I get to it.
How do you feel about having Dan Slott joining the Super family?
JW: Well, you know Mark and I have known each other for a bit and Mark knows that I’ve been a very big fan of his for a long time. So he and I definitely have, I’ll say, a connection Mark. I think that’s fair?
MW: Yeah, that’s fair. And, of course, I worked with Dan a lot – for years at Marvel doing Spiderman stuff. And so, I appreciate how much planning and thought he puts into this stuff and I think it shows in the work.
JW: I’m a big fan of Dan’s work from Spiderman, from Arkham City. That is someone I’ve always really liked their work. And so, with Dan coming over, it was really interesting. I didn’t know Dan at all. I really met him the first time through this process. I met him for the first time at a convention and he’s just very excited and he brings a lot of enthusiasm to what we’re doing. So that’s been really fun.
Hopefully the new Superman movie will create a lot of new curious readers what classic or not so classic Superman comics would you give the curious readers to begin their Superman comic journey?
JW: It’s good to definitely pick up the hits like, All Star Superman, Superman Birthright and Super Origin. There are these places you could start at. I would almost honestly say …I don’t know if Mark you would agree with this … When I started reading Superman, it wasn’t like somebody handed me a Superman comic and said start here, right? I picked it up off the shelf. I was reading comics off the shelf and then the Death of Superman happened … I almost think one of the beautiful things about Superman is you can pretty much start anywhere. I mean, especially when you look at a lot of our books. I think the stuff that we’ve been doing you can just grab these books off the shelf. I think the story that Mark is doing next with Superboy in Action, that’s a great place to start. I think the number one that we did in 2023, it’s a good place to start., but I think that’s one of the fun things about Superman and the fun things about comics is you really can start wherever you’re want. You don’t have to be so precious about starting at the beginning with comics. You can go with the expected, like All Star Superman and and looking at all these different, poignant standalone stories, but that’s not how my Superman fandom started. My Superman fandom started by grabbing what was on the rack. Going to a Target and just buying a book or going to Costco and getting a giant stack of comics. So I would just say if you’re starting out, just grab a book.
MW: Yeah, somewhere there’s a version of that answer is just whatever you see on the stands that excites you.
Solicits are promising some serious rage coming from Superwoman in your 25th issue, what does it mean to explore a Kal-el’s anger and how we’ll Supermen deal with it?
JW: I don’t wanna spoil everything, but something happens to piss the Superman off. I think Superman being angry is an interesting thing because it is a rare thing that we see, but when it does happen, it means something. And I think that’s what we’re building up across the book, like there was that scene with Lobo, where Lobo basically is saying you can’t ignore your anger, you’re Superman, but you still get angry. You’re still human, and you can’t bury it down. You gotta deal with it. I think that’s the thing where we’re kind of playing with across these issues and Superwoman, getting to see it. But you’ll see it once we get to 25, but 25 has some crazy stuff. He gets mad at the end, but there’s a big piece of that in the next issue where in 26 Lex says something to Superman that really pisses him off, but there’s other pieces involved that kind of build out.
Some of you are no strangers to writing Superman. Josh, you continue your story. Mark, returning to the character to write something new. What is it like returning or continuing with the character but in a different story? Or in some cases, an entirely different era?
MW: For me, I guess the answer is coming at it from a different era means you have to look at it from a different point of view and Clark is at a different place in his life as a young man and that is what Action is about. It is watching us build that hero from scratch. Watching Clark and Mo and Pa figure out how all this works from jump and that’s much different than writing Superman in World’s Finest, or writing Superman in Action Comics or what have you.
JW: You know every time we do one of these initiatives to create a new era, that whether it was rebirth, whether it was Year of the Villain … there’s been a lot of them. It feel like every 18 months, we have a theme and for Dawn of DC, it was very much about getting back to basics. It was very much about Clark and Lois and Metropolis. And so I got to write him in that frame but by the time we got to All In, it definitely changed how I had to look at the book like I had to look at Clark differently and that’s we introduced Superwoman and it’ll be the same thing the next time we do one of these and I’m really excited about some of stuff we have coming up that sort of plays with that. But I think it’s fun. It’s always nice to, I don’t know. I appreciate the curveballs every once in a while, and I appreciate the kind of the puzzle of it, of looking at, what does Superman mean to this specific moment? And that does change just over time. So for me, it’s, interesting how the book gets to change shape. It keeps me on my toes,. I think it’s important to reinvent your book every once in a while to put different spins. I mean, look at like Dan, on Spiderman, It was like every 18 months, every two years, you went through an awesome different story arc with Peter. So I definitely think that’s a really good model to follow with pretty much all of these superhero characters.
Dan, what is it like coming to the character at this specific time writing along these writers to tell a cohesive story?
Dan Slott: We’re in a weird point in history and it feels awesome to get to write Superman at a time Where the hero that most embodies hope Is there for everybody. Every single person on this earth, Superman, is here for you. And no matter how you’re feeling right now about anything, I like that you can pick up these books, open the pages and escape to a world where someone’s going to hold our hand and tell us it’s going to be OK. Where it’s OK for 30 minutes to feel hopeful. You know, I spent 10 years working on a character whose primary motivation was guilt. And it feels so good, like shedding this skin, that every time I get to work on Superman … to work on this character, who, even if you took away all his powers, even if you took away everything about him that’s on the superhero level, that he would be this Capra character. Who would just make you feel good about everything and feel good about everything in everyone. I’ve never worked on a character like this before and that’s uplifting to me. It makes me feel better as a person.
What does your particular series, Superman Unlimited, Action Comics, and Superman offer that the other two do not?
JW: For me on the Superman title that I’m writing, I’m going to be handling a lot of the big, big picture event stuff that’s coming up in the DCU. that’s gonna be a lot of my focus, a lot of the plot that we carry over from the All In Special. So if you’re looking for what is going on in the really big Uber All In stuff that we’re doing and the really big plots and building with Darkseid and the Legion, that’s what my book is going to be focused on. The stuff like, where is Booster, but obviously that’s going to be the main thrust of my book right now.
DS: Like Josh was saying his book is going to be the book that, if you’re looking at the masterminds of the DCU and the All In DCU vibe that everyone is loving right now, the whole Scott Snyder master plan thing, where that machine is going, you want to be hardwired into Josh’s book. If you’re someone who runs out and sees the new Superman movie and you feel all jazzed about Superman? And you haven’t been reading DC for a while, or you haven’t read comics for a while, if you’ve never read a comic book before in your life and you love Superman, Superman Unlimited is a great jumping on point. It’s a place where you can, every month get like a good, done in one or two-part story. You’re going to get your Superman, your Lois, your Krypto, Jonathan Kent. You’re gonna get this world where this Superman who’s a husband and a dad and a journalist is having these adventures.
While Josh’s book is going to be hardwired into DCU, there are events that are going to happen in Superman Unlimited that will affect the DCU. Things are going to change with the nature of kryptonite in the DC universe, things are going to change drastically in Superman Unlimited with how the Daily Planet interacts with the world. There’s going to be a lot of big changes. We might even see a new superpower, but if the thing you love most about Superman is that character and that vibe and that feeling that this big, new, wonderful movie is going to give you, this is the perfect time to jump on to this new number one.
MW: And I guess my answer to what is the series offering that the others aren’t? Is it really is a look back at how we built the Superman identity to begin with, how Ma and Pa and Clark built it from scratch, It happens on a day when Clark is much further away from being Superboy than he had planned than the Kents had planned. They’ve got some time to go because they haven’t figured everything out yet and yet as circumstances dictate, he ends up turning into Superboy much sooner than they had anticipated. They have to figure out the secret identity. They don’t know all the powers. They haven’t figured out any of this stuff. And so that is a look at Superman as he’s building that identity from scratch there’s.
DS: And there’s something fresh and new about that that we haven’t seen Superboy, Clark as Superboy in so long. It’s so wonderful to be able to pick up Action and read this.
MW: And even when we have, he’s always been just a short Superman. There’s been very few stories where Superboy was actually learning and growing and failing and so forth. He was always just a short Superman.
JW: Yeah, it was when we were doing one of the scenes last year during Absolute Power with Superboy and you and I were texting about it. And I was really surprised by the lack, at least currently of villains for Superboy that were just his villains and that’s something you have to explore. You haven’t really been able to see a lot of that. I was just trying to find a magic villain for Superboy back then. And I remember texting with you and you were like, there wasn’t one. So I said, I guess I’m making one up for this story.
To what extent is the story in Action Comics about getting the Legion back together?
MW: If that happens, that happens, obviously they’ve been a big part of Superman’s legend for a long time, but for the time being, let’s concentrate on Joshua’s take on this stuff and we will go from there.
Josh, your most recent arc has focused a lot in Superman on whether or not Lex is capable of change. Take a little bit about this evolving dynamic between Clark and Lex and where you see things going for them
JW: That was a major piece at the beginning because I really do believe Superman sees the best in everybody, he really believes there is something good in everybody. But what does that mean for somebody like Lex that he’s had this really long relationship with. I think at this point, the fact that we’ve established they’ve known each other’s high school, they’ve had a connection since their childhood, really. And what it’s like to have that kind of relationship with somebody who constantly is in and out of your life. And they’ve always had this antagonistic thing.
There’s I seen the first issue where Clark says, I feel like the only person I ever let down was Lex. And at this point he thinks, I couldn’t save Lex from himself, basically. So at this point, when Lex is coming to him and saying I’m begging you to believe in me, to see that I can change. It’s hard for Clark to say no to that. Like, how does somebody like Clark say no to somebody even when it’s someone who has done the kinds of things in the past that Lex has done.
The conflict of that, that’s not going to stop anytime soon. And I think that the challenge here is that, with Lex going through the stuff with amnesia and how we’re going to be having a new version of Lex at the end of this. The interplay between the two of them … it’s gonna play into some stuff we’re doing in the fall in a major way with the dynamic between the two of them. And what does this new version of Lex do now? He feels like he tried Superman., they tried and it didn’t work. It very clearly didn’t work and so what does the aftermath of that look like? We’ll be exploring that in the fall and in a very big way. And it’ll be really fun to see. I don’t want to spoil what happens in 27, but something happens with Lex in 27 that I think is really fun.
Superman’s Red K infection is going to get worse. How is this going to tie into the dangers that the Time Trapper warned Clark about?
JW: Clark’s anger is something we’ve been really building to and there’s a couple of scenes coming. There’s some stuff in the special where he talks about the idea of that, the summer will end and the fall will come. That’s just part of life; the fall will always come. You take those pieces. Plus, the stuff is going to be happening in 28 with the Legion and there is a moment where …Superman has always had a bit of a safety net in a way, right? Like the Legion, in a weird way, represented this idea that everything is going to be OK eventually, right? He’s always had this in the back of his head, he knew the legion existed and once some of that started to unravel for him a little bit, it makes him start questioning things. So, when you start taking the idea of him having a moment of doubt, plus this anger, he’s going through this emotional stuff.
Time Trapper is going to use that to manipulate him, and not only him, but others, and that’ll play a big part with the stuff we’re doing in the fall. It’s hard to answer without talking about the fall because so much of what we’re doing is building to these really big pieces that we’re building for the fall and for next year and Superman plays a major role in those stories that it’s hard to get into too much. But remember, Time Trapper is somebody who can look at time as a whole, but also how it can be changing and shifting, but because of some of the events of Absolute Power and stuff even going so far back As Dark Crisis and Death Metal, time is … and Mark, I don’t want to spoil your stuff, but time is broken. Time is broken and so we take all these pieces and Time Trapper being a part of that and knowing that? That’s all going to play into the fall.
With a powerless Zod, how do you make him a formidable threat to the superfamily?
JW: You know, here’s the thing. When he was on Krypton, he did not have powers and he was a badass, right? He was a dangerous dude and he did not have powers. He does not need powers to be dangerous at all. This is a ruthless man. He does not care. There’s a reason he was putting the Phantom Zone. He did not have powers when he was put the Phantom Zone.So I’m not worried about him being a danger without his powers, I actually think he might be a little more scary because he does have that crutch anymore, now he has to really come at them. And I think once we get to that story with him, it’s going to be a scarier story with him, without the powers and how far he’s willing to go to do what he wants to do again, without spoiling stuff for next year.
With this title and the Summer of Superman comic Initiative, this year very much seems to be the year of Superman, even with the new film coming out. For those of you who like the character and are now shaping his mythos and comics, what makes his character, and in this time in particular so exciting for you?
JW: Well, I think Dan answered that question. Listen, there’s been dark times in the world and I remember when I was writing Barry and Barry’s optimism, it was always good to have Barry in my head during those moments. And I feel the same way about Clark, having Clark in my head, it’s like Dan was saying, having these characters in your head, it makes you kind of slow down and just think about these moments and it gives you a feeling of optimism, a feeling of hope. Having Clark in your head … So much of our job is that, you have to sort of become these characters. There are times, especially the last couple years, where I found myself thinking about Lex more and being more in Lex’s head, but right now it’s been really nice to have my head in Clark’s.
The Summer of Superman issue is somewhat unusual, telling one story through three different perspectives. What was it like navigating this process for you guys?
MW: It was pretty easy. I mean, the nice thing about working in the Superman office is the communication is always very open. Paul Kaminski and Jill and Brittany and everybody else working on the Superman books is really good about making sure that we’re all informed about what everybody else is doing.
JW: Yeah, I think we were all on the same page with what we wanted from it and Nobody’s coming at Superman from some weird area that flies completely in the face of the rest of us.
DS: I was coming in a place of complete and utter fear, because I was the Oreo filling in between, Mr. knows everything about Superman in the history of comics and Mr. been marshalling this character through an Epic Run. It’s like, Hi new kid! Fortunately I had Superman on my side.
MW: Yeah, you stepped up. Yeah. I mean, we want a little bit of seed of fear still in you just at all times, but….
JW: Yeah, if you’re not a little afraid to write Superman, you should be a little afraid to write Superman. I feel like Superman is funny. Mark, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it too, but Superman is really easy to get right and it’s really easy to get wrong. And I do think that’s why some people come into it like it is good to have a little bit of fear to keep you on your toes.
Jorge Jimenez is a fan favorite artist when it comes to Superman. What was it like working with him on your parts of the story?
MW: I mean sensational, right? He gets it. There’s action to it. There’s movement, but he gets the small moments too. It’s very rare that you get an artist who can do the big, bombastic action and can also give you the subtlety of the small emotional moments. And he’s really good at that.
DS: He’s a secret weapon in that everyone thinks Batman, Batman, Batman, but if you chip away at the surface, he wants Superman He’s dying to work on Superman. So, this was like a chance for him to go into the Batcave and rip off the suit instead of going into a phone booth.
Dan, with both your and Josh’s titles set in the current main DCU, how will you avoid stepping on each other’s toes?
DS: The fun is like what areas of Superman’s life you’re going to play around with. The stuff that Josh is playing around with is really the hardcore DC of it all. If you look at the All In initiative, it’s done amazingly well. People are really invested in where the DC Universe is going and Superman is such a core part of the DC universe that if you want that Superman, you’re there in Joshua’s world. If you want to tunnel vision on Superman and enjoy Superman as a character, as a husband, as a father, as mild-mannered reporter. We are going to have other characters of the DCU show up, but I’m kind of having fun in this pocket of just pure Superman.
I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Validus, but firstly, can you talk us through why you chose this villain to be the integral part of the story? And secondly, how will he and the events of this issue influence his stories in your upcoming runs?
DS: I’m not sure, but jumping in I was very scared about jumping into DC and I haven’t played around in the DC universe for about 20 years and it was a really nice way to break in by having a villain. I didn’t have to script for. He has dialogue, right? He can’t talk, he just kind of goes Arrrrrrrh! And that’s great.
MW: Yeah. I mean, we really needed a heavy hitter. We needed somebody who could really be a threat to Superboy and Superman. Somebody who could time travel in the sense that, somebody from the future can pop in in any era in Superman’s life and so that gives us the continuing thread that goes through all three stories.
On the page where we see Superboy and Krypto first leap into action is a very recognizable billboard which may or may not relate to the Smallville TV show. Did that show influence your take on this era of Superman at all?
MW: Sure. I mean that show did some really groundbreaking work with the character as a young man and I’ve continued to say that the single greatest legacy of that show is for the first time seeing Mo and Pa Kent not look like grandparents, but look like vital parental, integral parts of Clark’s life as opposed to just two old people who sit around and bake pies and sit in a chair and smoke pipe.
Mark, you already talked about how what you’re doing in Action Comics will be different from the other Superman books. Is there anything else that people should be aware of now that you are taking people by the hand and expanding on Superboy’s mythology as opposed to Superman’s?
MW: Yes, but we’re not siloing ourselves off in the sense that there are elements beginning in the very first issue where we’re planting seeds for connections to the present day and there will be more of that going back and forth. So, we’re not again, not completely siloed off into the Smallville era.
Great. And that actually leads into the next question, to what extent can you hint or tease seeds that are coming that will actually bear fruit in either Superman or Superman Unlimited?
MW: There’s a device that shows up in the first issue of this Action run that may be familiar if you’re paying attention to the Superman universe that shows up both in the present day and past times, and it will continue to play a role in the future.
Dan, in another interview you did, you referenced that you may be bringing back the Prankster. Can you expand upon that?
DS: Yeah, when I look at like the Rogues galleries of DC, you get like all these heavy hitters in Batman and in Flash, and then you get these monoliths in Superman, you get these guys that are perfect. You don’t ever want to touch them. They’re great. Just play with them as is, your Brainiacs, your Zods your Luthors. Then there’s some guys where I’m like, OK, I want to get my hands on this guy, and I want you to look at this character in an all-new way. One of the biggest ones in there is the Prankster. I’ve got a Prankster take that will freak you out.
You will never look at the Prankster the same way. One of the things we’re going to do is the character you think of as Uncle Oswald, as your classic Prankster, that IS this Prankster’s Uncle Oswald.
And they’re going to be a front man and when you meet the real Prankster, it’s kind of messed up.
Most of my stuff is, hopefully, gonna fill you with hope and joy and wonder, but when you get to the Prankster, you’re going to think, should kids be reading this? I don’t know. This feels wrong. Something about this feels really, so horrible.
We’ve also got some fun plans in Unlimited for a new take on Metallo. It’s still Corbin. But what we’re doing with him, especially in this age where we’re going to do all this weird stuff with kryptonite. We’re taking a character with the feel of the Kryptonite Man, and we’re elevating it and you’re going to have the Kryptonite King. And what’s he about and what’s he doing?
MW: Reimagining these characters is part of the big part of the job and part of the fun of it, I just turned in a World’s Finest story yesterday with Superman and Batman, where we take a look at the Bizarros and Bizarro World in a way we never have before. It is straight up horror movie vibes.
DS: Yeah. I can’t wait for people to crack open these books, these three books, this new era and see the different things we’re doing and the different pieces we’re building. And in an early issue, you’re going to see Solivar’s goddaughter.
She’s going to move from Gorilla City to Metropolis and she’s going to be the new IT person for the Daily Planet, it was really fun in my old gig, playing around with like the classic characters of the Daily Bugle and Peter’s friends from high school. Now I get to play around with your Steve Lombards and your Ron Troupes, and your Cat Grants and it’s really going to be fun.
And that’s a perfect segue into this next question, talking about the Daily Planet’s expansive role, how important to you was it to highlight those aspects of Superman’s character now?
DS: This is Lois’s ship. The Daily Planet has Lois as editor-in-chief and there’s a way we want journalists to act, like when we watch a movie. I don’t watch sports, but I love watching sports movies.
I don’t really care about journalists in the real world, but ohh you give me a good movie about journalists tracking down a case going, having to deal with the ethics of when can I publish the story? You’re going to have in the Daily Planet and the Daily Planet crew a look at journalists as heroes, the way you really want a journalist to be and they’re going to have foils in the DC Universe version of journalists that we have here in the real world.
Like a newsboy legion that’s more like the Tik-Tok’ers that are getting things out as quickly as possible and there might be 1,000,000 problems with their stories.
Or someone we’re going to have is one of the main foils, Jack Ryder is gonna have his own kind of podcast called No Laughing Matter. Where it’s he’s dealing with things in a way that’s half Joe Rogan and half Matt Drudge with a little bit of conspiracy theory thrown in. He’s following these weird stories that maybe we shouldn’t know the truth about.
And, how do Lois and Clark and Jimmy deal with this kind of stuff, is going to be one of the storylines we’re playing with in Unlimited.
Mark, working on Action for a long run has been a bucket list item for you. How much of what you’re doing are stories you’ve wanted to tell for a long time, and how much are ideas that you’ve had for a long time, that you’re finally getting to flesh out?
MW: Very few of the stories are actually stories I’ve been percolating on for a while, although your quest for the day is, if you want to go look at the collected editions of Superman Birthright that have been published, and I did an afterward for, there’s one of the stories that is plainly spelled out there, but the rest of them are more broad ideas, more things, that I’ve been percolating on for a long, long time. Like what is it like when you discover telescopic vision for the first time? How does it make you feel to be in Smallville and see the rest of the world where stuff is happening and you’re stuck in this little tiny town?
What is it like to develop heat vision for the first time? What is it like to fly for the first time? There’s a lot of that in there, a lot of living within Clark and getting into the emotional angle of how these abilities and powers make him feel. There’s also a lot of leaning on the relationship between Ma and Clark. We’ve done an awful lot with Pa and Clark, and we’ve done a lot with Jor-el and Clark, but we’ve not done a whole lot, to the same depth with Martha and Clark and what their unique relationship is. And that’s a lot of fun. Pa till shows up, Pa still gets his moments, but it’s Ma who really gets more of the stage time in Action Comics.
Dan, having such a long run on Spiderman, who has arguably the best rogue gallery in comics, what is your approach to Superman’s villains? Other than Luthor and , maybe Brainiac, there seems to be room to level up some of his foes.
DS: We’re going to create some new villains, which is always fun. The last time I’ve really done that for DC was over in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, creating all these new rogues for Batman. You want to find the characters that work best for Superman, and there’s all these misconceptions about Superman. People think he has a weakness for his magic. No, HE doesn’t, everybody does. Yeah. So of course, Superman is vulnerable to magic, cause everybody’s vulnerable to magic. It’s not like you can throw a four leaf Clover at him and he goes, AHHHHH NO!
You look at the weaknesses he has, you got your kryptonite, your red sun and a weakness to anybody created by Jack Kirby, they have the ability to punch Superman and it hurts, so you have to think about it in those kind of terms. And I don’t think I’m Jack Kirby, so I’m not going to create somebody that walks in and punches Superman really hard. I’m going to try to find the ways that you hurt Superman in different ways or challenge him in different ways and that’s a fun puzzle for this character who can lift an ocean liner over his head and leave it on the moon.
When you have this gig, people have asked me, especially when I teach class, where do ideas come from, where do you get your ideas? And the thing I always tell them is you always get ideas. Ideas are coming into you all the time. And what writers do is, write them down.And you put them aside and when you need them, they’re there for you.
So, for 20 years, if I had a Superman idea, I wrote it down and put it in the file. And I’ve been waiting for the chance to tell Superman stories. So, my bucket is really full of all the things I’ve always wanted to do with Superman. He’s on my Mount Rushmore of guys. I’ve always wanted to write. So, I’m ready. I am so ready to jump in there and just tell a million Superman stories. I can’t wait.
Dan, you referenced Metallo a few minutes ago and this question kind of leans into that. With kryptonite being more ubiquitous than ever, what will this mean for some of the kryptonite-based villains, like Kryptonite Man, Metallo, Reactron and so forth?
DS: For someone like Metallo, you’re gonna think, wow, you’re nothing now. Everybody’s got a Kryptonite ray gun, everyone’s got a pair of Kryptonite brass knuckles in Inter-gang. Who cares that you got this chunk in the middle of your chest and we’re going to do something very interesting to that. You’re gonna have to wait and see, What this means to be Metallo? He’s going to get an upgrade and I can’t wait for you to see it. He will have an all new kryptonite heart. That’s all I can say.
Dan, the unlimited branding really emphasized the expansive nature of the Justice League roster in Mark’s title. What does unlimited mean for you when it comes to Superman and how will that manifest in the stories that you will be telling?
DS: We were looking for a way to explain what this book was about and when you read Justice League Unlimited, there’s this vibe that Mark created that anything could happen at any time. A vibe that I want in my comics, I jealously wanted that so Mark has paved the way for the next guy to come in and go Batman Unlimited, Wonder Woman Unlimited.
So, we owe it all to the coattails that we’re grabbing onto the, but that’s the vibe. The same kind of vibe that anything can happen at any moment, and with a character like Superman, you have to step up
Beyond the Summer of Superman, what does the future look like for the Man of Steel and in this case the boy of steel?
MW: The future looks challenging, I would say challenging in all our books in different ways.
DS: Yes, new beginnings. This is fresh ground. There’s been an ethos at at DC of All In, that you can jump all in. This is a great time to see what all the Super books are doing. If you’ve never read them, if you’ve been hanging back, this is going to be a great entry point to a whole new era of Superman.
With Clark and Lois, a lot of people tend to forget about Clark and Lana and how important she was and still is to him. It feels like this issue really brought that to the forefront. Can you talk us through why she’s so important to Clark and to the Superman mythos and why you wanted to focus on it in the Summer of Superman Special?
MW: Yeah, they have a very special relationship. I mean, they’re best friends. It’s Lana has always been kind to Clark at a time when other kids …because Clark has to eep his light under a bushel and sort of act a little bit more timid and he’s got to distance himself from Superboy. Lana is one of the kids who will still treat him like they always have. She’s not the one making fun of his glasses. She’s not the one giving him a hard time about being scared a lot of times of bullies and so forth, so she’s great and Clark can tell her things that he can’t tell other people and that’s gonna play into what we’ve got coming up in Action Comics.
How often do you return to the Siegel and Shuster Action Comics #1 and those early stories? Is it important to keep them in your imagination while writing Superman?
DS: The timelessness of it. Superman is an icon. You can look at Superman through the lens of any era that there’s a scene in Superman Unlimited #2, which opens in 1938 because you wanna show you it’s the lay line, you go all the way down to the root. I think more than that, you can’t live on this planet and not know who Superman is, and you can’t grow up in any different era and not have guys that are your Superman.
So it’s weird to me because I grew up where before I bought a comic I’d seen the Fleischer Superman cartoons and I’d watched George Reeve on TV, the black and white tv show. I had read this book from the local library, Superman from the 30s to the 70s and it wasn’t till you know I was 8 or 9 that I started buying comics. And the Superman comics that I bought were always with him and other heroes because I always wanted to try to get the maximum amount for my quarter. I wanted to get as many heroes as I could in the book, but there’s a foundation for me of these great, giant treasuries. My parents would buy them for me if I asked them to. So, I have all these treasury stories of Superman. So, to me the character was always, this is going to sound corny … bigger than a comic because I would hold these giant trades that only Superman seemed to get, And then Christopher Reeve came along and that just sank it for everybody else. And that became Superman.
MW: And my answer is different for Superboy and Superman for Superboy. I go back to the Siegel and Shuster material looking at it like he was an activist, he was a take no-prisoners guy. He’d push people around if he needs to, push people around who are doing awful things, he is going to take on social causes and that’s what our Superboy has the advantage to do. By now. Superman as molded in the DC Universe has learned to temper his anger and temper his rage and temper his feelings of injustice and channel them into more productive ways. I don’t have that problem with Superboy. In the second issue he does things that you wouldn’t see Superman do, and there are prices to be paid for it.
As far as Superman goes, I do go back to the Siegel and Shuster era, not so much in the social activist angle, but the fact that Superman … if you look at that very first issue of Action Comics, he’s holding a car over his head, now we take that kind of strength and that kind of super heroic imagery completely for granted now, but that was the first time anybody reading comics or looking at newspaper strips or listening to radio shows had ever seen something that crazy. It was so crazy that the publisher, DC Comics, said this is ridiculous. Nobody’s going to believe that a guy can pick up a car, let’s not put him on the cover for a while, and it wasn’t until a few issues later that the news dealers were telling them, No! We want the guy who can pick up a car on the cover. That was what’s selling. So, Superman was created to do impossible things right from the start and that that is what he does.
You’re not writing a Superman story unless at some point or another he does something that no one else can do. He does something that is completely impossible. There is no problem that Superman cannot solve if he has time to think about it, because that’s what we want out of Superman. We don’t want him to fail, we want him to succeed, but we also want to be invested in the emotions of it and why he wants to succeed what’s against him and what he has to overcome.
Let’s end with this question , Superman is sometimes called old-fashioned and no longer relevant, but it actually feels quite the opposite right now, when we talk about hope and the immigrant experience, how would you respond to someone who says Superman isn’t relevant anymore?
MW: I think the answer is in the question. I think that if you’re talking about a character who is a reporter, who is an immigrant and who deals with social problems and who is about uniting people? I don’t know that he’s ever been more relevant.
DS: This is the time in my lifetime where I think more than ever, we need Superman. This is one of the things that attracted me more to coming over and doing Superman is I want Superman now. I want this hero now.
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